Hopefully no one will ever need this, but knowledge is a good thing and in this case it could help save someone’s life.

A novel, unorthodox rabies therapy first done on Jeanna Giese, is showing promise in treating those people who don’t respond to or are unable to obtain, proper rabies vaccinations in response to rabies exposure.

In the absence of the vaccine regime or rabies antibodies, the virus kills by interfering with the brain’s ability to regulate crucial body functions, including respiration and heart rate. With little hope for (the girl’s) survival, Rodney Willoughby, an infectious disease specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, induced a coma to protect her brain from viral attack, giving Giese’s immune system time to rev up to combat the virus.

While the therapy appears effective, it’s still a long road of physical therapy back from the ordeal as current survivors are showing.